KTV Madness

On Friday we went out to eat at a really nice restaurant here in Xiangtan. We ordered eggplant, some beef thing that tasted like steak, and a few other things. We also had yutou bing which are deep fried donut-like thingies with purple yutou (taro) filling. I thought it was interesting because at one point the waitress came over and told Melinda she needed to put her bag on the back of her chair. Then they cover it with like this fabric bag so no one can get into it. I guess they feel that if you leave your bag on the floor it will be easy for a thief to steal. I just thought it was funny that they forced her to do it.
The food was ludicrously expensive—I am talking like $5 or 6 dollars a plate, which is expensive here. Normally they are only $1-3 dollars per plate. But it was worth it because every dish was fantastic. I noticed that they cooked the eggplant perfectly, which never seems to get done right at the smaller greasy spoons. Our friend Barry, who is Chinese, was telling us that this restaurant is one of the best in all of Xiangtan and that every body comes here especially on a Friday night. We got there about 7:00. He said that if we had gotten there just a little bit earlier, this whole place would have been packed. The weird thing too, is that as we were nearing the end of our meal the whole place started to close down. The workers started to eat together all gathered around a single table. I took a picture of them because I thought it was so unique. You never really see workers eat together like that in the states. This was only about 8:30-9:00 and they were already clearing up the tables and closing things down. I thought that was weird because it was a Friday night. I asked Barry why they didn’t stay open later and he said he thought it was because they already made enough money that night. Enough money? How can you have enough money? I think the real reason is that most Chinese people don’t go out as much on Friday night, but leave that for Saturday night and maybe Sunday. That’s how it was in Taiwan. I could never figure that out. The Church in Taiwan would hold Relief Society enrichment activities on Friday night of all nights! Forget going on a date with your Husband. Also, my friends in America who were Chinese never quite caught onto the concept that Friday night is date/ party night in the states. It’s not for doing homework! Yet time and again I would call them to hang out and they would act completely bewildered as to why I would be asking them to do something on a Friday night…
After that we went to KTV, which for you newbs means Karaoke. Barry and Dennis finally found a place for us, even though the room was a bit small. It was good, though. The girl who brought us water there was cute. The songs were really old ones. Most of them were crap like “My heart will go on” or “I want it that way” or some Brittany spears crap. But I think everyone would admit the highlight of the night was when I sang some Chinese sings By Wang Fei and Sun Yanzi.Yes, the applause was raucous. Our new friend Dennis stole all my thunder though. He knew more of the English songs than we did. His English is really good. He has been working on it for a long time. He is a good friend and understands our standards and does not try to get us to break them.

Saturday was more KTV fun. I use the term fun very very loosely. This KTV activity was the idea of my Chinese boss, whose name I will leave blank to protect the innocent. He thought it would be a good bonding activity for all the teachers to go sing KTV (ie get plastered). Unfortunately, due to circumstances beyond my control, Melinda, Mike, and I ended up eating hotpot with Dennis. It was a shame that there was a timing conflict. About an hour and a half after the KTV was supposed to have begun I got a text from Clarke, (the other teacher that made it on time) basically pleading with us to come and save, er I mean, come and help him have more fun….
We took a taxi and Clarke took us up to the KTV in progress. About 10 minutes before we got there, some of my boss’s friends arrived and Shanghaied the whole KTV. These “friends” included the Chief of The PSB (PSB) for all of Xiangtan. We walked in on him and his wife (I assume) singing to some unknown Communist era song. The Chief was bedecked in his Communist garb, three shiny gold stars on the shoulders. Occasionally, he would let random squeals of “yay!!” amidst his singing in Chinese. Little did we know but the Chief and his crew were fastly approaching that much sought after state of plastertude.
One of my boss’s other bespectacled friends, that I had met earlier at lunch, came over and began trying to toast me. “I have seen you twice,” he said in broken English. I quickly snatched the glass of water that Clarke had offered me so I would have something to toast with. This was a good thing. He kept trying to shove a glass of beer into my hand but luckily I had my water. I played dumb. “No thanks, I have this water.” He shook his head in disapproval. He pointed to his glass, turned it upside down, then gesticulated wildly for me to follow. This was after Dennis had already explained to his chagrin that we do not drink. Oh, but would not be deterred, and neither would Comrade Chief.
While this dude was busy breathing down my ear telling me how I was his best friend and how he wanted me to help his daughter prepare to go to Australia, Comrade Chief was busy trying to get Melinda to drink. “Just one sip!” He kept insisting in Chinese. She just kept acting like she didn’t know what he wanted. At one point the guy sitting next to her got up and knocked the Chief’s beer completely out of his hand. I had to stifle a cheer. But this did not stop the Chief. It was obvious he hadn’t heard the word ”no” a lot in his life. He grabbed another glass and got busy trying to shove it into her face. He got the beer right up to her lips and it sloshed all over Melinda’s shirt. Dennis got up and tried to explain that we don’t drink, but the Chief said, “Sit!” Dennis tucked his tail between his legs and went back to his seat. Apparently the Chief and his dad are good friends and so he couldn’t really do anything. Our boss, Andrew, who is an Aussie, saw what was going on and came to the rescue. He went over to the Chief and sat down between he and Melinda and convinced the Chief to have a drink with him instead. Finally the Chief desisted. I was relieved. I was wondering whether or not I was going to have to get the firehose out, or perhaps Jacky Chan his porky but back to Chinatown.
Dennis explained to me that since none of us would be drinking that the Chief had insisted Dennis drink on behalf of us. What a guy, that Chief. Flippin love that dude. I looked over at Dennis as the bespectacled drunk dude who earlier was breathing in my ear forced him to down his glass all the way to the bottom. Dennis had this look of pain in his eyes and I could tell the alcohol was getting to him. My stomach twisted and I felt myself clenching my teeth. They were hurting my friend but I didn’t know what to do. I thought he might get sick, even die. I guess I was thinking about that college kid at USU who died from drinking too much at a hazing ritual. I knew I couldn’t do anything though, but my heart swelled for my friend who was willing to help us and suffer through the pain. You might wonder how I could feel this way about someone I had only met the day before. But here in China when you make a good friend you are friends for life. Even more than that, I felt something different for Dennis. We understand each other better than most people, and our sense of humor is very similar. Even Dennis thinks that he doesn’t get along with most Chinese as well. They just don’t understand him. I find myself in the same predicament. Partly because of my personality, but also because I am so invested in Chinese culture. It is impossible to understand somethings unless you can know Chinese language and culture.
Eventually, we figured out that it was better to be up holding the mic singing than to be assaulted with toasts. So that’s what most of us did the rest of the time. Apart from the time the girls were getting yanked from their seats to go dance with the creepy old men, that is. After a while I just walked out. Others seemed to follow my lead and pretty soon we were all out. We were followed down the stairs but the Chief, the bespectacled drunk guy, and friends. They saw us of for a good five minutes shaking hands again and again, and rambling on about friendship. Eventually, we just got in a taxi. I was glad to be gone. It is the last time I will KTV with people I don’t know. The best part of this whole story is that my boss never even showed up because he was too drunk to make it up the stairs in the first place…..

Gaggles of Giggling Girls

I am here in Xiangtan, Hunan teaching Business English at Hunan Institute of Engineering. Two other teachers from America came here with me, Clark and Melinda, though they are just volunteers. I don't know what to tell you about Xiangtan, it is all so new to me. It is a lot more Ghetto than Changsha. In fact, if you are wondering what "the real China" is like (ie. everythng away from Beijing, Shanghai, and Hong Kong), then I have a simple formula for you: Take the most Ghetto thing you can imagine and times it by ten. That's about how it is. Xiangtan is a city of about 500,000. It is one hour south of Changsha, the capital of Hunan province. Right outside the old campus where I live there is a dirt road called Dong Hu Lu. Simply translated, this means East Lake Road. I am not sure why they call it East Lake, because it is really on the East side of the Xiang river. So maybe I would call it Dong Jiang Lu. Jiang means river. The Xiang river is named for this region of Hunan where the people speak the Xiang dialect (or maybe it is the other way around--the chicken or the egg). It is crazy because just an hour away in Changsha the people speak a completely different dialect. Most people speak Mandarin, but sometimes it is a little jacked up. For example, sometimes people say Dong Fu Lu, instead of Dong Hu Lu. Or they say Funan instead of Hunan.

I like Xiangtan because it is quieter and less polluted than in Changsha. The school I teach at is on the new side of town and up in some hills with lots of trees so the air is mostly pure and clean. This is in contrast to the filthy, murky air of Changsha. In Changsha there is this curtain of smog and haze that drapes itself over the buildings and streets. It is tangible. When I was staying in a hotel there you could see the sun turn red as it arched over the steeple at the train station. It was a surreal experience. Here is Xiangtan you can sometimes see the haze, but at least at my school the air is clean.
Of course, I use the term “clean” loosely. There is always the smoke. It is worst when indoors where your lungs are smothered in puff after glorious second-hand puff of tobacco. Outside the air dilutes the smoke, however, I don’t thing you ever quite escape the tendrils of some students cigarette smoke. This is more true of Changsha than Xiangtan. In Changsha you will never escape it. I had heard that smoking was more prevalent in China than in the states, but it is not something you can truly appreciate (or loathe) until you come here and experience it firsthand.
Of course, along with the smoking comes the spitting. Imagine the nastiest smoker logy hawking contest in the world and that is the treat your ears get every day. Again, worse in Changsha by sheer feat of numbers. Changsha has around 6 million people, and when you figure that 1 in 3 people smoke here, that is 2 million cigarettes or more a say. Of course, when yours lungs are inundated with cigarette fumes you don’t notice the pollution! Maybe that is why they do it. More likely, it is because cigarettes are so cheap here. For around $.50 you get a pack of cigarettes, though they are noticeably shorter than those in the U.S. Also, I think it is just like everything in China, people want to go with the crowd and fit in, and smoking is just one of the things necessary to do so, at least for the guys.

For the first few days here in Xiangtan I was trying to gauge how the people felt about me. You see, in China if you are white you are basically like a movie star. Everywhere you go, at least in Hunan, people stare at you. This is not the case in a place like Hong Kong, where the standard of living is better than that of even most American cities. I don’t think I had more than a couple of looks the whole three days I spent in Hong Kong. I didn’t even hear the infamous phrase that has since been burned into my memory, “Wa! Hao gao wa!” (Woah, so tall!!) Upon arriving in Changsha, the contrast became very apparent. As soon as we were had put our stuff in the hotel rooms I went on a short solo walk near the train station. Each and every person I passed looked at me for a good 5-10 seconds. As I crossed the overhead bridge (big intersections have these huge concreted overpasses that you can use to cross the street) there was this mother and her 8 year old son selling some knifes (think Crocodile Dundee- “That’s not a knife, this is a knife!”). The little kid came running up to me smiling. I took a picture of him with his mom. Kids here love us. They are so funny and so curious. The best though, is when I am walking and I pass someone, preferably a teenage girl and then she looks up expecting to see a Chinese person, and instead is greeted by a 2 meter tall white guy. They invariable start blushing lower their head in embarrassment and mumble something to their friends, probably containing the words Laowai (foreigner), hao gao (so tall!), and jiu bizui qinwo (shut up and kiss me…okay maybe they don’t say this last one, but I know they are thinking it). It’s awesome. I think in one day here I have gotten more looks from girls than in my entire life previous in the states. Granted some of that is the WTF look of “Where did this freakishly tall white man come from? Is he a genetic mutant left over from early tests in Nuremberg?” But there is no denying that the gaggles of giggling girls (mostly middle school) are impressed with my hotness. Sigh…